The importance and consequences of maternal energetic condition on larval growth and survival in two Atlantic coast striped bass populations

Understanding the relationship between the abundance of spawners and the number of new recruits they produce is central to ensuring the sustainability of fish populations.  Traditional approaches have principally related recruitment to stock biomass only.  However, factors such as the size and age of spawners are known to influence survival of their eggs and offspring through a variety of mechanisms.  Less understood is the role of female nutritional condition on reproductive potential.  To investigate the role of striped bass maternal condition on reproductive potential, 18 females were collected from the Chesapeake Bay and Roanoke River, NC and spawned to assess egg quality, larval growth and survival.  Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to explore which maternal characteristics influence progeny phenotype.  Our results show that simple measures of female length, weight, and age may be insufficient to fully understand maternal effects on larval growth and mortality; however, integrative indices of female nutritional condition such as total liver energy · female body weight^-1 (kJ·g^-1) and hepatosomatic index (HSI) can improve our understanding of larval mortality and growth.  These results demonstrate that the nutritional condition of wild female striped bass can have significant impacts on individual and population reproductive potential.